


Confusion Makes For A Bad Bedfellow

by Krasimer



Series: Don't Take My Sunshine Away [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia!76, Amnesiac!Jack, Angela has issues, Angry Soldier:76, Angst, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Gabriel Has Issues, Gabriel Reyes is protective of his people once he stops acting like a dick, Lena is confused, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Mentions of Widowmaker, Sad Gabriel, Winston is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7524175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her eyes closed for a moment, her hands still shaking as she covered her face, trying to block out everything else. She needed to breathe, she needed to think, she couldn't do anything if she couldn't think. Her mind was her strongest asset and it needed to be in top condition to be of any use to her.<br/>If her mind wasn't of use, what good was she?</p><p>Useless flesh, useless waste, couldn't even save one of her friends, someone who should probably have died ages before. Gabriel Reyes was dead, long live his corpse, walking about in the day like some incarnation of Death. This was her failure, ich habe versagt, her ruin, her mistakes, her-</p><p>She gasped, her entire body shuddering when something grabbed her wrist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confusion Makes For A Bad Bedfellow

"Ow's he doin'?"

Winston looked up from his tablet, taking in the sight of Lena looking over Reaper's still body curiously. "Too early to tell," he said quietly, setting his tablet aside in favor of sitting up to meet her eyes. "Doctor Ziegler is trying something new, something else this time, but..." 

He let the sentence trail off, shrugging one shoulder. 

"Don't worry Luv, Doc Ziegler knows what she's doin'. I'm sure she'll have 'im up and runnin' again in no time at all!" Lena disappeared for a moment in a streak of blue before reappearing with a folding chair. "Care for some company?" she offered, her voice going soft. "It's no fun to have ta wait by yourself."

"I would appreciate the company," Winston nodded, taking the chair from her and setting it up while she zipped off again. When she came back, she offered a jar of peanut butter and a small bunch of bananas.

"Figured ya hadn' eaten, luv," she shrugged, a small smile on her face as she watched him take the food. "S'no' healthy, not eatin'. Ya always get after me fer doin' the same."

Winston smiled back, pulling the lid off the jar and setting it to the side before peeling the banana. "I know, that's part of why this is...Gabriel Reyes was supposed to be dead almost two decades ago. Doctor Ziegler mentioned something about having recovered a victim of the bombing of headquarters, but I didn't know she meant him," he gestured with an elbow. "And he is so resistant to being called Gabriel."

Lena nodded slowly, curling her hands around the edge of her seat, her heels wiggling in the air. Her toes were anchored on the ground, below the bar connecting the chair legs and he was almost afraid of her moving. It might break a toe if she moved too quickly. "Wanna know what I think?" she asked, looking at Reaper again.

"Yes, actually."

"I think he's feelin' sorry. Somethin' happened and now," she sighed, rubbing her hands together. "Now he don' know what ta think."

"That is actually how we got ahold of him," Winston answered her around a mouthful of banana. "Soldier 76 pulled him into our grasp to reverse a paralytic he'd been shot with. Seems Mercy handed it over to him to help give him some answers."

"What?"

The clatter of feet against the floor behind them sounded before Winston could say anything else. Both of them looking up made 76 shift awkwardly, his legs carrying him a little closer. They couldn't see his eyes but it was still obvious that he was staring at Reaper. "The doctor let me take three doses of a paralytic and short-burst EMP that knocked his nanites offline long enough for me to talk to him."

"Ah," Lena blinked owlishly, once, twice. "And...Why was talkin' needed?"

Instead of answering her, he reached up and pulled his visor off. Beneath it was a set of tired blue eyes that had once belonged to Jack Morrison.

Lena gasped, a gentle intake of breath that accompanied a sharp movement backwards in her seat. "Don't any a' the dead stay dead?" she whispered, her wide eyes watching as 76 dropped the visor to the table with a sharp noise. He leaned past both of them to press two fingers against Reaper's pulse.

"I don't know," he grumbled, the rumble of his voice almost familiar to Winston by now.

Standing quickly, Lena pushed her chair under him, waiting until he'd settled into it before taking off and returning with a third. "Not a problem with me, luv. I just- I know who ya are."

"...Do you," 76 watched her, took in the twitching feet, the hands that wouldn't stay still. "I don't," he said, patently uninterested as he went back to monitoring Reaper. "I was told to ask him about who I was. He tells me what I ask, doesn't linger on any emotions he remembers having with me. Is he going to recover?" 

"He should be soon, Angela is flushing the sedative from his system. All of the ones we were running through made the nanites shut down instead of simply slow," Winston shook his head when 76 landed a sharp gaze on him, a brief flare of anger in his eyes. "We're working on it."

The old soldier nodded, his posture remaining rigid.

"Yer name was Jack Morrison," Lena began carefully. "Know it probably doesn't help all that much, but I can help a li'l. I remember signin' up fer Overwatch, I was so proud. Me mum was even prouder, if ya can believe it. When oi walked in fer the first time...Everythin' was so big and new, I couldn't believe that this was where I was workin'. It was scary, too.

"Weren't fer a man named Jack Morrison, I'd'a been lost fer a long time," she continued, smiling at his blank face. "He came and helped me find where I were supposed ta go."

76 studied her face, a small frown putting wrinkles into his brow. "He sounds like a good man."

"He was," Lena nodded, her hands twisting together in her lap. "And I think yer a good man too. Workin' with us, makin' sure things go well...Half of me fights wouldn't go half as well weren't fer you."

He nodded slowly in return, then looked at Winston. "Who was I to you?"

"A friend. A commander and a friend," Winston cleared his throat. "I heard about Reaper's reaction to you asking about some things. Do you know exactly what set him off? I don't think we need to have it happen again when it can be prevented."

"I asked about..." 76's frown deepened and he looked away. "I asked who was more important."

Winston sucked in a slow breath, eyes wide. "What were the choices?"

"Reaper and McCree. Both confessed to knowing Jack Morrison."

Pulling off his glasses and buffing them clean, Winston sighed. "There is a...I know it doesn't seem important to you right now, in all likelihood, but don't ask that again. One of them was more important, but I don't-"

"Do you think I don't know that?" 76 growled out, pulling away from Reaper and standing up. At his full height, he was a looming menace even with the red, white and blue color scheme. "I -" he groaned, tugging at his hair, then turned and stormed out.

"Well," Lena said after a moment. "That could have gone better."

 

xXx

 

Her hands were shaking as she changed out the IV drip, the simple saline solution that was hopefully helping the man who lay on the bed before her.

Angela sighed as she sat back, throwing the old bag away and settling into a seat. Winston had needed to go do something, make sure that a system was running, and she appreciated it. What she didn't appreciate was how close to her history she was being forced. In one moment of grief, she had changed a man's life forever.

Gabriel Reyes was dead, long live Gabriel Reyes.

Her eyes closed for a moment, her hands still shaking as she covered her face, trying to block out everything else. She needed to breathe, she needed to think, she couldn't do anything if she couldn't think. Her mind was her strongest asset and it needed to be in top condition to be of any use to her.

If her mind wasn't of use, what good was she?

Useless flesh, useless waste, couldn't even save one of her friends, someone who should probably have died ages before. Gabriel Reyes was dead, long live his corpse, walking about in the day like some incarnation of Death. This was her failure, ich habe versagt, her ruin, her mistakes, her-

She gasped, her entire body shuddering when something grabbed her wrist.

"Don't..." he whispered, his voice hoarse. He'd been sleeping for two days, her fault her fault her fault. Overestimated dosages, nearly killed him all over again, nearly took away the chance for them to be whole once more. The only one who could recover Jack Morrison from where he was lost lay in the bed in front of her and looked up at her with tired eyes, half out of focus. "Thinking too much, Angie."

He was right, her mind was racing, she couldn't-

"Angie," he growled a mixture of an order and a warning in his tone. "Angie, you need to calm down."

It felt like she was all of seventeen years old again, her first mission in the Valkyrie suit, coming home stained in the blood of the three agents who had come after her. Before the wings, before the flight was built into it by hands that seemed to never stop shaking before she would clamp down on the terror building in her chest. 

When he tried to sit up, a pained groan pulled from his chest by the motion, her doctor instincts kicked in and she shook her head, pushing down on his shoulder. "Sit," she ordered, suddenly pulled out of the fog that had taken over her mind. "You are not well enough to stand."

"I'll stay sitting if you stay the hell out of your own head, comprende? Not a good place to be, Angie," Reaper - Gabriel - _Reaper_ sounded angry but he was right. He was dressed as Reaper, his face was Gabriel's, the way he held himself was Reaper, his voice, her nickname, that was _Gabriel_ , she-

"Yes," she muttered, forcing her thoughts away from that. He needed her in the present, figuring out how to deal with the mistake she had made the last time they'd seen each other without a mask in the way.

"Good," he allowed himself to relax back into the bed. "Tell me what you're doing."

"I am checking your vitals and making sure you are hydrated," she ran over the few things that could be monitored. "There are some irregularities, but it is...It is nothing in the wake of knowing more about the situation."

He eyed her carefully, a flash of red in his gaze before it faded. "The situation?"

"I sent Soldier 76 to you. I did not think it would hurt you, I was hoping he could ask you questions and-" she trembled, pressing her lips together. "I did not know it was him. I did not know he had survived, I did not _know_!"

She was crying now, tears flooding down her cheeks in hot streams, her hands balling together in her lap. Slowly she crumpled, her head dropping into her hands, a hot flash of guilt and agony flooding through her as she let her thoughts consume her. "I did not know, I did not know, I did not know..."

"Angie," his voice was softer now but she couldn't decide if it was because she was having trouble hearing him or if it was because he was actually trying to be soft. This was not Gabriel Reyes, she may as well have murdered Gabriel Reyes with her own hands through her inexperience and pride. A braggart was she, a useless thing that had thought she could accomplish something beyond her skills, that had thought she could play god-

Her face was pressed into something hard, one of his hands cupping the back of her head, and for a moment she thought it was an attack. 

"Don't you DARE fucking even think that!" he scolded, his arms going tight around her, holding her close. "Do you hear me, Angela? No te- Just don't! You are not useless!" He pulled back, glaring at her and shaking her by the shoulders once. "I'm angry and I'm a little broken but don't you _dare even think you're useless_!"

A shocked hiccup flew out of her, her tears going dry on her cheeks as she stared back at him with wide eyes.

"Now," his chest was heaving, the IV line swaying from side-to-side as he settled back down. "Tell me what's happening with me."

She brushed a hand across her cheek, scrubbing away the tears. "There were traces of something in your system, potentially the cause of the negative reaction from the sedative we were trying to use on you. I would need the notes of whatever doctor was presiding over your health," she cleared her throat, nodding slowly as she reached for her own notes. "It seems to have been an inhibitor of some sort."

His nose wrinkled as he nodded along, his eyes flashing dangerously at the end. "Son of a BITCH!" he snarled, eyes narrowing as he glared at his hands, clenched them into fists that shook with his rage. "Couldn't do the same to me, had to find something _new_..."

"What?"

Gabriel's eyes met hers and she shivered. "Couldn't slow my heart like they did to Amélie, had to figure out how to do the same effect."

"Same effect as what?" Angela had her pen out, jotting down notes as he spoke. 

"They wiped out her emotional responses."

The world around them seemed to stop dead, Angela's pen falling to the floor. "She-"

"She loved Gerard, do you think she'd willingly kill him?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Angela, Hello Lena, good to see you here!
> 
> Once again, I bring you a chapter of sadness and sorrow and I am really loving writing this story. 
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for telling me what you think, and I just have to ask you to keep doing it. Tell me how I'm doing, I don't bite and I love hearing from you. I am a chubby nerd. I have over 200 dice to play DnD with. I am not in any way scary, so please feel free to talk to me here or on either of my tumblrs. I am Krasimer and LookUponMyWorksYeMighty and I really want to know what you think!


End file.
